PG&E seeks big increases in monthly electricity, gas bills

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BUTTE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 12: The sun peaks through the smokey skies from the Camp Fire and a PG&E transmission line, Monday, November 12, 2018, three miles west of Pulga, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

PG&E, even before it seeks potential rate hikes linked to wildfire liabilities and lawsuits, on Thursday asked state regulators for large increases in monthly electricity and gas bills, according to new official filings by the embattled utility behemoth.

Customers who receive both gas and electricity services from PG&E can expect to pay $12.55 more a month in their power bills if the state Public Utilities Commission approves two sets of proposed increases, according to estimates provided Thursday by PG&E. The current average monthly bill for residential gas and electricity customers is $165.94 a month.

“This is alarming,” said Mark Toney, executive director with The Utility Reform Network, a consumer group. “PG&E is asking for a bailout.”

The proposed increases arrived through two separate rate requests to the PUC. One is PG&E’s general rate case, which occurs every three years, and the other is through a proceeding that’s specific to costs linked to the shutdown of the aging Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant perched on a scenic coastal stretch of San Luis Obispo County.

San Francisco-based PG&E listed an array of reasons, some of them related to enhanced electricity system safety, for the increases proposed in the general rate case.

“The utility proposes to invest a total of approximately $5 billion, including approximately $3 billion for capital expenditures, between 2018 and 2022 on community wildfire safety program measures,” PG&E stated in the regulatory filing. “Through this program, the utility proposes to bolster wildfire prevention, risk monitoring, and emergency response efforts, add new and enhanced safety measures, increase vegetation management, and harden its electric system to help further reduce wildfire risks.”

However, PG&E also indicated that separate and as-yet-unknown proposals could someday surface related to its wildfire-related liabilities arising from a series of lethal infernos that scorched the North Bay Wine Country and nearby regions in October 2017 and a deadly blaze that tore through Butte County in November and essentially destroyed the town of Paradise.

“This proposal does not request funding for potential lawsuits or claims resulting from the 2017 and 2018 Northern California wildfires, the largest of which are still under investigation,” PG&E stated in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.

The full PUC must approve, modify or reject PG&E’s proposed rate increases.

“This is a proposal and will go through the PUC’s open, transparent and public review process,” PG&E spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo said.

In connection with the general rate case, the current monthly average bill for residential customers, now at $165.94, would rise 6.4 percent, or $10.57 a month. Current electricity monthly bills of $113.64 would increase 7.7 percent, or $8.73 a month. Gas bills that now are $54.13 would rise 3.5 percent, or $1.84 a month.

The Diablo Canyon related rate case would cause monthly electricity bills to rise $1.98 a month, or a 2 percent increase over the next six years.

Some critics of PG&E believe that state legislation SB 901, that was approved by the Democrat-controlled Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, amounts to a bailout of PG&E for its liabilities related to the 2017 wildfires as well as future wildfires that might occur in 2019 or years after that.

PG&E is already a convicted felon for crimes it committed before and after a fatal explosion in 2010 that killed eight and destroyed a San Bruno neighborhood.

“If PG&E can’t get a bailout for the wildfires that occurred this year, it looks like they are going to the PUC to get their bailout from ratepayers anyway,” said state Sen. Jerry Hill, whose district includes parts of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, as well as San Bruno. “That is why we need to watch the PUC very carefully during this rate case.”